The Redneck Single Momma
by Hellion5Angel4
Summary: This is my real life story. I didn't know where else to post it on the internet, but I wanted to put it up just in case someone read it. It's messed up enough to be a lifetime movie. You might laugh, you might cry, you might call me a stupid woman. But it's what happened. For real.
1. Chapter 1

**Names have been changed to protect the innocent. This isn't even ALL of it. There's nasty things Ted's mother said about me. Nasty things Ted's brother said about me. It's a disaster. But once you read, you'll understand. **

**There is STRONG language in the story. there is your warning.**

My story starts in my younger years in high school. Short info about myself: I live in a family of one mom, one dad, and one older (and fucking high on self importance) princess of a sister. My sister, we'll call her Princess Peach for shits and giggles. Peach, while in college, decided to move down to Florida to work at Disney on a scholarship program based out of her school. There was a huge farewell party in her honor, and my family drove her and her friend, we'll call her Elpheba, down. I went with, saw their apartment, which was nice as fuck!

But moving on. We got Peach and Elpheba set up in The Sunshine State, and turned around and headed back to Tennessee. When we got back, everything seemed lacking. Peach went to a community college and was home every night after classes. But then she wasn't. So it was just me left alone with my thoughts and my self while mom and dad went about their work lives. Which I get. I guess in that loneliness, I turned to cutting. I don't remember the real reason, but I've always been the fucked up one of the family, anyways, so it wasn't like it was some big surprise.

Peach returned about 5 months later with her tail between her legs. Turns out Elpheba had a nasty pill habit and she didn't want to live with that in her perfect princess life anymore. So she called and we went down and got her. Well, fast forward to the biggest and WORST disaster of the entirety of my existence. We'll call him Ted.

I was still in high school, in Info Tech, when I met Ted. It was my senior year in high school, and since I was doing such a shitty job of fucking up any chance of a college future anyways, I didn't really apply myself to my classes. So I had my friend Belle, my other friend Red, and then there was Ted. I wondered if he was special ed at first, because he was constantly coming in and hugging the teacher against her wishes, acting an idiot infront of the entire class. It was weird. But I just thought he might be weird. But he was cute.

Well, first Belle dated Ted. And that didn't work out so well. So I asked Belle, in good friend nature like girls do, if she would care if I tried to date him. She didn't care, said she even had his number and would call him so we could talk. Well, we talked. And decided to meet. So Belle and I, who lived SUPER close to each other, decided to take a walk together and meet up with Ted. We found him sitting on the curb under a street light and I sat down beside him. He took my hand and for seven years after, we were inseparable.

I would sneak him in through my window into my room and that was the first night I was ever with a guy. We continued to do so until one night when mom's dog, Copper, followed his scent from the back door to my bedroom door. And then we were busted. So..long story short, we continued this relationship for a while. He would be with me, then break up with me.

Then be with me, then break up with me. ...then be with me...then break up with me. Then we broke up...again, so I ventured on my own, in an attempt to move on, and decided to bed a few guys. 5. It's not like I broke a world Slut record and had 249846797345976359 guys. 5. That was it. Ryan, PJ, Ernest, Craig, and Devin. I think it's pretty good for your sex life record if you can remember all the names of everyone you've been with, myself, but I digress. He got with this little sophmore Aria. He cheated on her with me, and that's when we got back together again. Then I went on a summer trip with Belle to North Carolina. We went to Carrowinds, had fun on the lake drunk. And, though I told him I don't remember, I do with perfect clarity that we were back together after I called him drunk and "talked him in to it."

But when I arrived back home, after a few months of not hearing from him, I assumed we were broken up. Really. For good. So I had heard from Belle that her brother's friend Devin was coming down to Tennessee for the summer. Of course, excitement of a new person, possibly a cute guy, was overwhelming. I was dying to know if Devin would be a good guy or not. And he was. I don't remember WHY IN THE FUCKING WORLD I thought it was a good idea, but I picked up Devin and Ted and ...let's just say that Ted had a billyclub that he scared Devin off with. I don't remember why I thought that was a good idea, what the hell I was planning, or what I expected to happen. And I've apologized to Devin for that since and he's forgiven me. Moving along...


	2. Chapter 2

The final time we got back together, I was happy. I had missed Ted, missed the familiarity of having him. My work life kind of screwed me. I was preparing to go into Job Corps for a culinary position. I love cooking and it's what I wanted to do. But right at the last minute, I was ordered by my dad to check in at a donut shop I had applied at and I got the job. Which meant I didn't have to go to Job Corps. I stayed in Tennessee. Moving back on track... Ted and I weren't allowed in each other's houses, so we settled for an abandoned spot in the middle of nowhere just a few minutes down the road from his house. We'd smoke pot, watch movies, buy food with my paycheck and have sex. On occasion, we would spring for a hotel room, and one time when we did, Ted thought he would get pumped up for it by taking 4 Oxycodone he stole from his mom and couldn't get it up. What a waste of money. Anyways, we were just living for the night. I'd been given a curfew, since I was still living with my parents, of midnight.

I would blow them off. I'd ignore the curfew, drag into the house sometimes at 6 or 7 in the morning. All so I could be with my love.

A side note: I should mention that along the road, I quickly found my lover was a pill head, but he explained it was because of his dead sister who committed suicide on the side of the road because she had overdosed on pills and had some scarring somewhere that was misinterpreted as Herpes and was kicked out by her husband. So she killed herself. The extent of his pill-headedness went to extremes. I went to get him to we could hang out. Decided I was hungry, so we went to Taco Bell. I bought him some food, and got myself some food. We got back to his house, he got out of the car, stumbled, fell, and spilled his large baja blast on the ground. Because he had taken too many Somas. (muscle relaxers)

Then once, when I was allowed in his house, we were laying in the bed watching a movie on TV, I decided I should go home, so I nudged him and told him. "Let me sleep for like 5 minutes and I'll walk you out." ..okay...5 minutes later another nudge. "Babe, I've got to go now. You gonna walk me out?" Silence for a minute, but then a quick, "Mmmhmm." He finally sat up and swung his legs off the bed, wobbling on the edge as he did. I thought it was odd, but nothing more. He got his boots on, very sluggishly, and then tried to stand. He wobbled like Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. So I grabbed him. "What's wrong with you?" I wanted to know. But he wouldn't say. So I walked him out into their den and sat him down on the couch. "Rim, something's wrong with Ted. He's acting weird." So there was an investigation. She made him chocolate milk and dry toast...he couldn't hold his glass without spilling it everywhere. Couldn't hardly chew the toast.

This point, I was worried. There was a large grandfather clock in their den and his father decided Ted was going to the hospital. He was gently pushing Ted out of the den into the kitchen backwards, knocking him into the clock. Ted was mocking, "Careful daddy. You're gonna break your grandfather clock." I went with them to the hospital. They admitted him. He laid in the bed and didn't hardly move. The doctor told me himself that if I hadn't kept waking Ted up, he would've died. His organs would have started shutting down due to lack of movement and activity. They called in an assessment person from the local nut house and they talked. Then they admitted him to the institution. For a week. He got out, and everything went back to normal.

Everything was working out fine and dandy until I was talking with a friend at work and talking about how sensitive my lady bags had become. She told me, "Girl, you better go take a pregnancy test." So I did. I took three, actually. And they were all three positive. I was pregnant and was going to be a mother at 20. Well, I certainly won't forget the day I told my parents. I came home for lunch, just like I always did, and my dad asked me, "Are you okay?" And I guess I was too quiet. "Are you pregnant?" BOOM! My internal voice thinking, 'How the FUCK did HE know?!' Thankfully, I had finished lunch, so I gave a quick yes. He sighed and shook his head. "Go back to work. We'll talk about this when we get home." He followed me outside, to where my mother was working in the garden, and I quickly drove back to work for sanctuary. Because I didn't want to be around when that nuclear bomb exploded in the back yard.

No ma'am, not this girl. Nope. Can't make me. Well, the rest of that shift was the quickest damn shift I've ever worked in my life at any job. It FLEW by. And then it was time to go home and face the music. I sat on the stairs in our den, mom and dad on the couch, and my sister on the single chair. I forget the whole conversation, but it, to me, boiled down to either 'Abortion or get out.' So there I was, having to choose whether or not to kill my unborn child or move out on my own. My mother now claims that was absolutely not the case at all, but I'm pretty sure it was. It's okay mom, you were just trying to protect me.

Well, on the other side of the fence, Ted was at first completely scared shitless, as was I, and then he came around. He got a job, at a fast food place, but it was a job. His family was just appalled at the suggestion my parents had made, and that's when they sunk their claws in my brain so deep, I'm still, 7 years later, trying to get them out. Life moved on into November, my birthday month. The day of my birthday, I went to see Ted. His family from Florida had come up to see the family at the reunion in September, but decided to stay for a while. As in a few months of a while. They were tickled shitless that I was going to have their great grandchild and his parents already had grandchildren, but they were excited for another. So I went to see Ted, he had a plate of food and an open glass of sweet Tea as he got in the car so we could drive to our spot. This was earlier in the day...around 3 or 4. I remember we got to the spot and I don't remember what we were fighting about, but I accidentally spilled tea on him. Not all of it, just a small splash. He was not soaked in the beverage. We continued arguing and one thing led to another, he dumped, on purpose, the entire glass of the COLD, STICKY, WET tea on me. In NOVEMBER. So I hit him, he hit me, and that's when I backed out into the road to head back to his house before it could escalate. Well, Ted wasn't having any of that, so he put my car in park, took the keys out of the ignition, and headed down the road.

I freaked the hell out, and then turned on my emergency blinkers to alert anyone that I was not moving, I could not move, and Please do not hit me. :-D

I locked Ted's door to call his family to come help me, that's when he came back to the door and unlocked it with the car key. The phone call never went through, they key fell in the passenger floorboard and we were both scrambling for it. The next thing I know, I sit up and there's a guy with a gun pointed at Ted. On my 21st birthday, I was almost positive I was going to watch the ass I loved get shot. Great. Well, he didn't. He complied with the guy, who was an off duty sheriff's officer, and was put in cuffs and stuffed in the truck of the guy. That's when the county officers arrived. I was just freaking out at this point, but they asked if they could search my car, I said, yeah that's fine. (Me, forgetting about some spare sprig of pot in a tylenol bottle with a glass smoking bowl shoved in the glove compartment) Until the guy mentioned it to me. I told him, "We're not allowed at each other's house. That's like his little closet here. I never look in it, but that's where he keeps his stuff." The county man, God bless you sir, said this, "Look. This is piddly stuff to me. I don't care nothing about it. If the city gets here and finds this, since it was in your car, you're going to be charged with posession of drug paraphernalia.

Just crush the bowl and I'll empty the bottle and get rid of it. We won't say a thing." Shew Lord...thank God. I was in ballet flats...tried for 5 minutes to crush the bowl...and i couldn't. He let me pitch it over the side of the embankment and that was that.

They took him on domestic assault charges and kept him. Well, in the meantime, I got to go back to his house and tell his family everything that happened. They agreed that he deserved it, though now if you asked, they'd lie and say they never said anything like that. *Something funny I just remembered, as the first off duty guy was cuffing Ted, I told him I was pregnant and why we were fighting, he told Ted, "If you hurt that baby, I'll kill you myself." XD Sorry.

So his mom took my clothes to clean them. I got to wear a pepto bismol pink sweatsuit home. When I got home, I got to change into clothes and go out to my birthday dinner like nothing had happened. I was almost certain Ted hated me. I just knew he had to. But he wasn't allowed to call me directly, so he called Belle, who was standing by. She let me talk to him and he was all forgiving and loving and I'm sorry baby.


	3. Chapter 3

When people say they didn't know they were in an abusive relationship...I used to think..."Uh...if he's hitting you one day then buying you gifts and saying sorry the next...that's a pretty safe bet.." I didn't realize that was what was going on. Fuck, I didn't even get gifts. So, Ted got out and everything was fine. By the new year, we had moved into our apartment. Scratch that. MY apartment that he just so happened to pay half of everything on. Ted got fired from the fast food place because of retarded attendance crap, (I'm sorry I didn't want to drive in 3 feet of snow to get him to work) and we were temporarily screwed. Until he got a job at a pretty well known dining establishment. It wasn't like $100 plate meals or anything, but he was a cook, and it paid the bills, when his parents didn't. Getting on in my pregnancy, I quit the donut shop. Because I was getting treated like crap. Me with a baby belly, 4 or 5 months at least, on the floor scrubbing out the insides of trash cans and standing on countertops cleaning the ceilings.

That boss lady HATED me. So I quit. Went without a job, making it my mission to keep the apartment clean, food ready for cooking as soon as I got home with Ted from work (he was 20 and hadn't bothered to get his license yet), and get ready for baby. Well, I was set to be induced on a Monday. Ted and myself went to the court house the previous Friday and got married, much at his mother's urges that if we weren't married before the baby came, everyone would see my bundle of joy as a bastard. It was nothing special, nothing stunning or big and fabulous. Just a lady outside City Hall, my love, and myself saying our I Do's. We were treated to a trip to Walmart where his mother bought us both a wedding band as our gift. Among other stuff like some movies and treats...yeah yee haw what a redneck wedding. I was scared. Out of my mind with terror at telling my family I had gotten married. But I did. And mom was so furious, she couldn't talk so handed the phone to dad. And it was literally, "Ted and I got married today." then he said "Okay." and that was the end of the phone call.

Public Service Announcement: DO NOT EVER GET MARRIED. NOT UNLESS YOU HAVE NO DOUBTS IN YOUR FLIPPING MIND THAT IT'S RIGHT. AND EVEN THEN IF YOUR FAMILY SAYS HE'S NO GOOD...DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND LISTEN TO THEM!

So we left the apartment, in a messy state, on Monday morning. It was 9 months later and I was getting ready to meet my baby boy for the first time. I couldn't even begin to explain the excitement. I remember everything. Going into the hospital, getting hooked up to everything. The epidural, the breaking of my water, which really felt more like I had just gushed pee and wet the bed. Minutes before I started pushing, my husband gets a phone call. It's our landlord from the apartment. They were wondering if we were going to pay our rent for that month. The agreement had been that when we signed the lease, we would get that first month rent free, then the sixth month rent free. Well, the sixth month was that month that we were having the baby. So, Ted pretty much told them to fuck off.

Right in the middle of the pushing process, Ted's mother, Rim, rushed in the delivery room. I had explicitly stated that whoever was in the room was going to stay in the room. No one else goes in or out. Whoever was in, was in. If not, I was going to charge $5 a head. Rim came flying through the door and bless her heart, Peach stopped her. Rim handed Peach a necklace and told her to give it to Ted. Which she did. During a short break from pushing, Ted put the necklace on and resumed as normal. My mother was in the room by my side, Peach was sitting at the foot of the bed with a front row seat, and Ted was on my right.

The necklace, ladies and gentlemen, is a vial on a chain. Nothing more. But inside the vial, there is glitter, and bone fragments and ashes where Ted's sister who had killed herself was cremated and then stored in a glass vial! IS THAT NOT FREAKY AS FUCK TO ANYONE ELSE BESIDES ME?!

After about 45 minutes to maybe an hour, if that long, of pushing, and my son was in the world. Gabriel. He actually has a different name, but for safety, I'm using the name I wanted to give him in the first place. Take that, TED! He was perfectly healthy. Ten fingers, ten toes. Ted was sobbing like a 4 year old who had their Popsicle taken away. There was a point where Ted was about to fist fight with his brother right there in the room after Gabe got here, but it was diffused. But it was all because I didn't want Rim in the room when I was having the baby but I let Peach in.

I ripped from giving birth, was given stitches, and stayed in the hospital for three days after. When we were ready to leave, Rim, in her clawed in my brain way, offered for us to come and stay at their house. That way she could take care of the baby, do all that stuff for me and Ted while I healed and so Ted could get back to working. Seemed like a fabulous idea. I could get my rest before taking on mommy-hood full force, Gabe would be taken care of, and we would have money to pay the bills. But I asked Rim, "What about the apartment? It's a wreck and we really need to go home so we can clean." and she said, "Oh, don't worry about it. I'll take Ted's (still living) sister and we'll go clean it for you guys." Deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Everything was fine, and was going to be taken care of.

Two weeks. I was, unbeknownst to me, held prisoner at their home for two weeks. I didn't have my car. I couldn't go anywhere unless I asked Rim to take me. So I finally called on Peach to come get me. I loaded up the baby and a diaper bag, and went to my parent's house for a few hours. This was the first time, since the day Gabe was born, that they had seen him. Held him. They were instantly in love with him. And spoil the boy to this day. And it's only been 3 years. Peach took me to the apartment and I grabbed my car and drove myself and Gabe back to my prison. But at least this time, I had my own transportation.


	4. Chapter 4

Ted decided it was time to go home. So we went home. I opened the door and we walked in. I had been told it would be cleaned. That it would be taken care of. No. Hell no. My dishes still sat dirty in the sink. A pot we had used to make Hamburger Helper was now full of maggots. All because Rim constantly lives in the land of tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. It can wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow! Oh, I was so pissed off. My good pot...full of damn maggots. Ugh...still makes me gag a little bit. Anyways.

I don't remember the reasons we had, but there were good times, then there were the fights. The knock down, drag out, claw marks, bruises, fights. I'm surprised to this day that the unfriendly lady (that's to put it nicely) below us didn't call the police. She called the cops one time because I tripped and had stomped my foot to catch myself. Any other time, she was banging on the ceiling because we were being too loud or making too much noise for her liking.

Quick rundown of what happened during the fights, because I can't remember every single one specifically:: I would get punched, held down on the bed, one fight i was still pregnant and had my mouth and nose covered so hard that I had bruises on the inside of my lips from where my teeth were being pushed against my mouth. I would try to run, he would follow. There's not many places to run to in a one bedroom apartment. But I tried. The bathroom. I jumped the kitchen divider that opened into the living room. I would literally run for my life. He broke the bathroom door by kicking it open to get at me. The fight would be over, he'd be covered in scratches here and there from my nails, I'd have bruises and he'd be crying saying I needed to leave him. He wasn't any good for me. We were going to kill each other. And he was right. I should've left him long before I did.

One specific fight, I was on a dating site and had made a profile saying I was a single mother who was trying to open a bakery. Because that seemed like a dream for me to accomplish that. But Ted decided to go through my computer and found it. He broke my glasses and if it hadn't been for the neighbor, Teddy, thank you wherever you are, I would've probably been beaten worse. I left and went to my parent's house. I came home later that night, he was bitching because I left him with no way to go anywhere, you've got a phone, Ted. You could've called your mom. I discovered he had poured a full can of mountain dew on my laptop and then scrubbed the battery under the sink like it was a dirty dish. I was and still am furious about that.

Then the last major fight we had that led to his second arrest: I had put something on facebook about knowing I've made mistakes in the past. But I didn't regret them. The one thing is...back to the 5 guys I was with when we weren't together. I told Ted about them when we got back together. And he was okay with it. Until he found out Ernest was a black guy. That just didn't set well with him, he obviously was/is a racist son of a bitch. So our last fight:

He had apparently read my status on Facebook. And assumed I was bragging about being with a black guy. I don't see color. I see people. Some are black, some are white, some are chinese, some are mexican. But we're all fucking people! In any event, I was on the toilet, and he comes in and leans against the sink, which is right beside the toilet. He starts to question me about why I was bragging about having sex with a black guy. And if I lied to him about the black guy being bigger. And if I lied about enjoying it. He snapped and called me a slut, started kicking me. Started choking me and literally ripped a huge bald patch the size of a fist out of my head of hair. The whole time this was going on, the baby was in the next room crying and screaming because he was scared to death. I went to go to him, and Ted stopped me. I put it simply to him.

"He's scared. Someone needs to go comfort him." and Ted, the most scary I've ever seen him, says, "He'll be fine if you quit fucking screaming." He threatened us all the time. Not just Gabe and myself, but himself too. He had a wicked knife collection. All of them constantly sharpened. He threatened that if I ever left, he'd just slit my throat, slit the baby's throat, and then his own. Fucked up doesn't even begin to cover him. Well, I go to work the next day, and act like nothing happened. My boss/friend Luke noticed I was off, but didn't say anything. I was sitting out back smoking a cigarette and noticed my hair was in a mess, so i started raking my fingers through it to try to smooth it out. It ended up everything that I thought was so mussed up and terrible looking...was loose hair where he had jerked a fist full from my head. I pulled and pulled and pulled loose hair out of the tangled mess it was and had a literal fist size full of ripped hair. I had a bald patch on my head for 6 months before it finally grew out again. Well, I called Peach and asked her advice. She can be a very good sister when she wants to be. So Peach called mom and dad and mom and dad came down to where I work and made me show them everything that had happened.

They called the police to get us an escort to get Gabe out of the apartment and then the police would get Ted. Which went well. I walked in at 11, Gabriel was awake in his crib. A soaked diaper and hungry as hell. Ted was still passed out in the bed. I grabbed Gabe and took him back outside and handed him off to my mother. Then two officers walked with me up to the apartment and we all went inside. They told me to stand back and I did. I hid in the bathroom and listened to it all. "Mr. White. Mr. White! Time to wake up, sir!" My heart was about to beat through my chest. I heard Ted say, "What's going on?" Then the officers spoke again. "Well, Mr. White, your wife called us. She told us you beat on her last night. Ripped a patch of hair out of her head." I heard the bed creak and assumed he sat up. "No. We had an argument but I didn't touch her."

I heard an officer chuckle. "You didn't hurt her?" Ted said, "No." The second officer poked his head in the bathroom and asked for a pair of pants and a shirt. So I grabbed dirty ones and handed them to him. "Well, Mr. White, I saw your wife. She looks a hell of a lot worse than you do. Get up slowly. We're taking you in." So the bed creaks again and they put the clothes on the bed. "Get dressed, please, Mr. White." So he did, then I heard the zipping of the handcuffs as they put him in. Ted asked, "Can I at least have a cigarette?" I laughed when the cop gave him a plain and simple, "Nope." I watched them walk him out in cuffs, down the stairs, out the door and he was put in the patrol car.

And you would think that would be the happy ending. You would think I would have learned my lesson. He was the poison in my life. And I was going to remove that poison and live on.

But if you thought that, then you were wrong. I was summoned to be in the court room for his hearing. He only got a public defender. I could've buried him under the jail. I could've put the final nail in that coffin myself. We had been talking about getting help. Marriage counseling. But that was before the fight. But I didn't. I thought we could be one happy family. I thought we would stay together forever and watch Gabe grow up into a man. And I was dead wrong. I was puled aside by the Victim's Advocate and she took me into a room by myself. Just me and her. BIG BIG BIG Mistake. She asked me what I thought the punishment should be. I explained that I loved him and I didn't want anything to happen to him. We were going to get counseling, help for our marriage. We wanted it to work. We wanted to live our dream. I just wanted it to go away.

Anyone could see my brain was in a tug of war. Half of it wanted his ass to burn in Hell. The other half loved him. Wanted to fight for what I loved. Wanted to keep him for myself. This was my husband. The father of my child. So she told me about Anger Management classes and counseling he would be required to take. And if he filed a Title 40, everything would be erased, per the Judge's approval. And I agreed. He would take some classes. We would get a grip on our anger problems, and everything would be okay.

Well, they let him off lightly with that sentence. We went back to our every day routine. Then things started to get shady. He was always texting someone. Saying it was his brother or a friend from work. Then he turned 21. And when he turned 21, HE TURNED 21. We were buying Everclear, which is 190 proof. Where as Jack Daniels or Captain Morgan is 90-100. Then he moved on to cheap vodka. By the gallon. Every night, he would fill up a cup, pour in something to mix it with to make it partially drinkable and then go down the stairs and into the laundromat that was under our apartment and talk on the phone at all hours of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

Sunday September 1, 2012. I had gone with Gabe and my mom and dad to Virginia to visit some family there. We were gone for a few hours and had just crossed the state line back in to Tennessee when I got a call from Ted.

Ted: "Hey. Where are you?"

Me: "Just crossed the state line back home. Why?"

Ted: "Can you stay away for an hour?"

Me: ...pause..."um...why?"

Ted: "Can you just stay away?"

Me: "Fine. I'll stay away for two hours!"

And I ended the call. Well, I told mom I "forgot" my debit card at the apartment and I needed to go get it. So we left Gabe with dad at their house and me and mom drove to the apartment. We parked on the far side so he wouldn't see our car. We went inside the front door. There's no one there. The place is freaking spotless. The carpet's been vacuumed, the kitchen is spotless, the bathroom is neat and tidy. And suddenly it started to smell fishy. I looked in the bedroom, no one there. The bathroom, empty. Kitchen and living room, empty. He wasn't here. We walked over and sat down on the couch and smoked a cigarette each, and that's when I noticed something different. We both smoked Marlboro Reds. Which had no designs or colors on the filters. There was quite a few cigarette butts in the ashtray that had a blue band around them. So someone else has been in our home, smoking with my husband. I heard the familiar boom of a car door shutting in the parking lot.

I looked out our second floor balcony door and saw him walking up the stairs with a girl. So my mother and I went into the bedroom and shut the door and sat down on the bed. And we waited. I heard the door unlock, voices, then the door close and lock again. And the first door that opened was the bedroom door. And he looked like someone had just kicked him in the family jewels.

Ted: What are you doing here?

Me: I forgot my debit card and I came by to grab it.

Ted: I think we should leave.

Ted turned back around and headed into the living room where a girl sat on the couch. Ted: "Come on." my mom, God love her, "No. I think you should introduce us." Well, short and skinny, Ted ran from the apartment like a little bitch and called Rim and Kandy to come get him. Amelia, we'll call her, sat on the couch like a doe. Eyes wide. Full of fear. Scared shitless. I decided to be the bigger person that day.

Me: What's your name?

Her: Amelia.

Me: Okay, Amelia. I'm going to assume that he told you something to make you think it was okay to be here. But I'm his wife. And I still live here. With him. And assuming that, I'm not going to kick your ass. Cause it's not really your fault. But there is one thing you should know.

This point, I explained to Amelia about the drugs, about the liquor, about the abuse, about the arrests, showed her the bald spot on my fucking head! Well, Amelia becomes SO apologetic and SO polite and all that bullshit. So she leaves. Well, Ted is waiting on his mommy and daddy to come save his scrawny ass. So I start talking to the neighbors outside off the balcony. They're joking and carrying on, so I'm laughing, of course. I don't show emotions very well. I get a text. It's from Ted. The text read (more or less): I can see you from the bedroom window. When you smile, you're the perfect image of a fat hog at a feeding trough.

Well, the next few days pass and I go to see a lawyer about a divorce and child custody and all that fun stuff. ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO NOT GET MARRIED. And then the same night, Ted calls me.

Ted: Has anyone called you?

Me: No. Why? Should I be expecting a call?

Ted: Yeah

Me: From who?

Ted: My lawyer.

He had gone Monday October 1st and filed divorce papers ex-parte. Which means, that they didn't know where I was. Basically, he lied and said I was gone. Left him with the baby. Couldn't be found. So they granted him full temporary custody of Gabriel.

Their battle cry during the divorce was: We are the ones who take care of Gabriel. We pay their bills. We support them. We watch him when they're at work. Which was complete bullshit. It was a partnership between my family and his. Everyone paid bills when we were in a tight spot. EVERYONE watched Gabe when we were working. It was in turns.

The result of the divorce and the child custody: I, THE MOTHER, and the primary parent. Primary custodial parent. He gets visitation. Every other weekend. Ted was fired from his sit down restaurant cook position. I'm not sure why.

He's is still with Amelia. Who it turns out I SHOULD'VE beat the shit out of when I had the chance. They've been engaged for two years now. She just had his daughter September 2, 2014. Hadley. As far as I know, things are going just swimmingly with Ted and Amelia. Now, there's Amelia's oldest child, Leslie who is about 5 or 6. Then Gabriel, then Hadley. Happy little family.

But I'm still a shadow in the background of that family portrait. Because Gabriel is mine. Always has been. Always will be. He'll eventually see his father for who and what he is. And that's fine. Until he does, I'll just support him the best way I can.

I'm 24. Single. Not every day am I okay with being single. It is lonely at night trying to sleep in an empty bed. I have started a relationship with Luke. Nothing will come of it. Because of the nature of the relationship.

I'm preparing to go to a college course for phlebotomy in the fall to get a certificate. Make more money, get out on my own, and make a better life for me and Gabe. Because I want to show Gabe who the better parent is. I love him. I am a tomboy mom. I take him to the mud boggs, I take him fishing, I play in the dirt with him. I'll build sand castles. I'll watch The Nightmare Before Christmas 1,000 times. Why? Because it's what Gabe wants to do. He's such a smart, sweet, beautiful boy and I am already proud of the kid he's grown to be.

But there's still a spot inside of me. A dark spot, like a bad hole in an apple, that just won't go away. A spot wishing I had buried Ted under the jail. A part that wishes I had done something instead of nothing. It was my own stupid decision to let him get off easily. And I'll live with it the rest of my life. I'm not okay with Ted. I sold my wedding band and engagement ring for $90, burned the notes he wrote to me, the pictures we had together, and our marriage certificate.

It was my way of letting go of it all. But I haven't. Not fully 100%. I have good days where I laugh, take a puff off my cigarette, a swig of some sweet tea and say, "FUCK HIM!" And then bad days when I feel awful, horrible, and empty inside. But some day, and I look forward to it, I will have let it go completely. Because I don't need Ted or his negativity. I don't need to wallow in what I didn't do. Because the bigger picture is, Gabe and me both escaped Ted's wrath alive. We're alive and we're doin' alright. And that's all that matters.


End file.
